Visa, USSC Money Services enable Visa Direct for cross-border B2B payments

Visa Direct facilitates transfer of funds to eligible cards, bank accounts, and wallets.

Visa has partnered with USSC Money Services Inc. (UMSI) to launch Visa Direct in the Philippines.

With Visa Direct, UMSI’s business clients can reportedly make faster cross-border outbound payments.  

Visa Direct facilitates the transfer of funds directly to eligible Visa Direct cards, bank accounts, and wallets in many jurisdictions around the world.

Since launching a decade ago, Visa Direct has facilitated over 11 billion transactions across over 195 countries and territories, and 150 currencies.

Prior to Visa Direct, Visa and UMSI have previously collaborated on an exclusive deal to issue the U Visa Prepaid Card.

The U Visa Prepaid Card is geared towards new-to-bank customers from segments such as business process outsourcing (BPO) employees and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

The Philippines has a strong outbound money movement market particularly for business-to-business payments, according to Visa and UMSI.

Visa’s "Money Travels: 2024 Digital Remittances Adoption" report says that there is a $151b outbound market opportunity, the majority of which cover business-related flows.

The same report found that 58% of Filipinos prefer digital money movement methods, with many citing high fees, lengthy processing, and the need to visit a physical location as common pain points in cross-border payments and remittances.